What search engines say they want
Webmasters
If you search for the keywords "search engine rankings" you will get hundreds of pages, many containing information on how to improve your rankings in search engines' databases or how to get listed. You probably also get lots of e-mail from companies offering search engine optimization services.
In this chaos of offers and tips, how do you know who to listen to?
It's important to choose your optimization strategy wisely. If you're too reckless, you can be blacklisted for spamming. That's right, your site could be excluded from an engine's index because of inappropriate behavior! And since about 85% of Web users find sites through search engines, being blacklisted can really cost you. How can you avoid this?
Give them what they want!
Listen to what search engines are trying to tell you. By knowing what factors search engines use to rank your pages, you can focus your efforts and achieve rankings without resorting to spam.
The following table provides a basic guide to some of the factors search engines weigh in ranking pages. None of the recommendations below are considered to be spam. So learn it and use it... and sleep well tonight.
Here's what the high-traffic search engines and directory sites say influence their relevancy rankings:
Search Engine |
What's not indexed |
Slow Pages play a role? |
Content and location |
HTML Title |
Meta tags |
Keyword Frequency |
Link popularity |
What it likes |
AltaVista
Search Engine |
Registration pages, text in graphics and multimedia files (use Alt tags), XML, Java applets, comment tags, Acrobat files, spammers |
Yes |
Very important,
Top of the page |
Very important, should be unique for every page |
Not important, but should be included just in case |
Not mentioned0, but the best location is title and top of page |
Important |
Uncommon words, good navigation, plain HTML pages with text only, themes, inbound links and keywords in link text. |
DMOZ
Users: AOL, Netscape; AltaVista, HotBot,
Google and Lycos directories |
Spammers |
Yes, considered poor design |
Worthy of indexing as determined by editors, and in appropriate category |
No, but the title filled in plays a role. |
No, but the description and keywords filled in play a role. |
No |
Not important for DMOZ, but is Important, for some of its partners, who use Inktomi |
Concise and accurate descriptions and keywords, choice of appropriate category |
Google
Search Engine |
Not mentioned, see AltaVista for approximate guidelines; spammers |
Not mentioned |
Keywords should be close to each other.
Content should include keywords in text or links |
Not mentioned,
but seems to be a factor |
No |
Not mentioned |
Very important, especially from relevant pages |
Link popularity, keywords near each other, keywords in URLs and link text, themes |
HotBot
Search Engine |
Frames, pages with cookie requirements, URLs with special characters (unless submitted through Inktomi's paid program), spammers. |
Yes, pages can be dropped if a server is too slow |
Ranks on the length of the document and frequency of keywords. |
Most important |
Very important, both description (150 characters) and keywords (75 characters) |
Very important (standard requirements are 3-7%) |
Important, uses Inktomi |
Lack of stop words, meta tags, HTML titles, lots of keywords, link popularity, and click popularity (HotBot uses DirectHit) |
Lycos
Search Engine |
Spammers, URLs with special characters |
Not mentioned |
Not mentioned |
Not mentioned,
but seems to be a factor |
Not mentioned |
Not mentioned |
Not mentioned,
but seems to be a factor |
Themes |
MSN
Search Engine
|
Spammers , frames - <noframes> tag needed |
No |
Not mentioned |
Important, should contain keywords |
Both are supported; description limited to 250, keywords to 1017 |
Important, 4-12 times |
Important, uses Inktomi |
Theme present throughout the site, site popularity |
Yahoo
Directory |
Spammers |
Yes, may be excluded |
Worthy of indexing as determined by editors, and in appropriate category |
No, but the title filled in plays a role. It should be concise |
No, but the description and keywords filled in play a role. |
No |
Very important, uses Google |
Concise and accurate descriptions and keywords, choice of appropriate category |
 
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